Lying. We all do it (some of us better than others), but
why?
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Liar (Source: Glen the Great. Image by unknown)
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Did you ever play the game in primary school Two truths and a Lie? The aim of the
game is to have a person tell 2 truths and 1 lie and the other person has to
work out which one is the lie. Here goes…
1. My boyfriend’s Father was born in Sweden and his mother was born in Uganda
2. I went to Canada on a high school band camp
3. Every one of my mother’s 5 siblings have owned a small business
at some point in their lives
So which one do you think is the lie?
Despite the little games we play, lying is an important part
of human existence. Because of our ability to lie, an individual has the opportunity
secure itself more food, more mates and perhaps most importantly, good social standing
with their peers. All of these things are not guaranteed though. The individual
needs to be able to lie well and escape detection from the people they are
lying to. Equally, they need to be able to detect liars so they themselves are
not duped.
Learning to lie and detect liars takes a lot of time to
develop. We start lying at a surprisingly young age. 6 months according to Gray
(2007). You have probably seen this yourself. A baby sits crying in their crib.
Their bawling is interrupted by a short pause where he/she looks around to see
if anyone is coming to give them attention and if no one is there they resume their
wailing. 3 years later and she is lying to mum about who really broke her little sister’s toy horse. By 15 she is telling
mum she is going over her friends place to study after school (wink wink). By the
time she is an adult she will most likely tell an average of 3 lies in a 10
minute conversation (Meyer, 2011) .
Some people are so advanced at lying that they can actually
lie to themselves. This is known as self-deception (Bayne & Fernandez, 2009) . This occurs when a
person holds two pieces of contradicting information in their mind but only
pays attention to one. This is often the case for pathological liars. According
to Mele (1983), when pathologiacal liars tell a lie is possible for them to
believe wholeheartedly that what they are saying is the truth. That is not all
though.
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Grey and White Brain Matter
(Source: Medical News Digest. Image By Unknown)
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Studies conducted by Yang et. al. (2005) showed that pathological
liars had significantly different brain structure compared to normal people.
They found that the prefrontal cortex of liars had around 25% more white matter
(the part of the brain that connects everything together) and 14% less grey
matter (the part of the brain that processes information) when compared to
normal controls (Yang , et al., 2005) . This essentially
means that pathological liars have a heightened ability to make connections in
their brain and therefore keep track of all the information due to the increased
white matter. The trade-off is in the reduced amount of grey matter which correlates
to our ability to think critically about (in this case) the implications of the
lie being told.
As we all grow older we learn how to lie, who is good at
detecting our lies and what lies we can get away with (McCann, 1998) . So how advanced are
you? Which of the 3 options given earlier did you think was the lie? Do you
think it is unlikely that my boyfriend has such a diverse heritage? Do you
doubt that a small high school in Innisfail would take their band all the way
to Canada? Or do you think it is beyond belief that my mothers 4 sisters and 1
brother have ALL owned small business in their lifetime? If you guessed option
2 “I went to Canada on a school band camp” you are correct. My boyfriend’s
father is Swedish and his mother was born in Uganda (to English parents
though), and my aunties and uncles do all have businesses (most in farming),
but I have actually never left the country (although just for your information,
I do know that quite a while ago my high school did actually send their band
over to Innisfail, Canada on a band camp but it was before I was born.)
References
Bayne, T. & Fernandez,
J., 2009. Delusion and Self-Deception. New York: Psychology Press.
Gray, R., 2007. Babies not as innocent as they
pretend. The Telegraph, 1 July.
Grey and White Brain Matter, n.d., photograph, viwed 5 may 2014
<http://www.medinewsdigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Brain_Cortex_Harvard-e1323835780229.png>
Liar, n.d., photograph, viewed 5 May 2014
<http://glennthegreat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/liar.jpg>
McCann, J. T., 1998. Malingering and Deception in
Adolescents: Assessing Credibility in Clinical and Forensic Settings. Washington,
DC: American Psychological Press.
Mele, A. R., 1983. Self-Deception. The
Philosophical Quarterly, 33(133), pp. 365-377.
Meyer, P., 2011. How to spot a liar. Video recording:
TED.
Yang , Y. et al., 2005. Prefrontal white matter in
pathological liars. The British Journal of Psychiatry, Volume 187, pp.
320-325.
It’s amazing that the brain can be structurally different in pathological liars! Why do you think humans tolerate little “white lies”, but are less tolerant to bigger lies, when both are effectively “cheating” the system? Do some people show a heightened ability to detect lies? Are there any obvious “tell tale” signs that someone is telling a lie? Awesome post!
ReplyDelete"White lies" are often tolerable because they help keep social harmony (If everyone is happily ignorant of things that are of no real importance then there are no fights going on), but as humans grew to be better liars they told bigger lies to get more selfish rewards. At the same time, humans became better at detecting lies and the consequences of being found out got more and more harsh as humans thought it was unfair. As one person put it, the human race would "decend into anarchy" if lying wasn't brought under control.
ReplyDeleteA major factor contributing to the fact that big lies are unacceptable is the inclusion of the commandment "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour" (Exodus 20:18) and later, the legal system. Both of these discourage lying and we are better off for it!
Some people do have a heightened ability to detect lies and it is often the liars. A study on cheating showed that men are both more likely to cheat on their partners AND more likely to detect cheating in their partners. It’s the idea that most liars are consciously aware of the way they deceive others and are more tuned to pick up the same cues in others.
Signs that a person is lying include, increased sweating, excessive eye contact (not a reduction like most people think), the use of formal language and absence of contractions like "didn't", language that distances them from the situation (eg "I did not eat THAT cookie" as opposed to "I did not eat THE cookie"), excessive detail, ridged stance (as opposed to fidgeting which is the more common opinion), a smile that shows “duping delight” (they are happy or proud to get away with the deception), and many others. Although these are all signs of lying, you should only conclude that a person is lying if these are exaggerated more than what is normal for that particular person or there is a combination of these signs
For a really good video on lying check this out! :)
http://www.ted.com/talks/pamela_meyer_how_to_spot_a_liar